FOTD: Fading liner for neutral make up

Product List:

• Biore Perfect Face Milk
• Dior Hydralife BB Cream (Luminous Beige)
• MUS Cover All
• MUS Wonder Powder (Kalahari)
• MUS (Pollution)
• Müse (customized)
• Maybelline Falsies mascara
• Fiberwig Mascara

Review & Recommendation: Haunt Beguiling Bath & Body Perfume Oils

I finally had finished trying out all the perfume oils I got from Haunt! (previous Haunt review here)

These perfume oils were all gorgeously packaged as usual.

I'm keeping this one forEVER.

Apparently the brand owner does her own artwork..she's so talented! I'm really impressed by how pretty they are!

So the perfume oils..their throw is up to whispering distance, so you definitely don't need to worry about perfume-bombing everyone. I'm kinda sad about it though, since they smell so great, I want the entire room to smell it. I'm obnoxious in that way. One of the scents, Galleon, had a noticeably lower throw than the rest, and you have to practically press your nose to the spot you applied it on to, even before it dries down.

They last about 2-3h before they dry down and you have to smell close to the skin to catch a whiff. You still smell traces for about 5-5 1/2 hours though.

The amazing thing about these perfumes is that I liked all 4 of the perfumes I got. I'm only crazy in love with 3 scents, but I still like the other scent. I'm now pretty confident about purchasing Haunt's scents blind. They just suit me so well!

Packaging-wise, I really love the labels. The artwork is just so gorgeous! The bottles don't come with reducers or rollerballs though, so you have to be really careful when applying. Also, one of the bottles did this:

It's very stuck. I was tipping it and it stayed put.

That white bit got stuck hard and took some effort to remove. The perfume ended up spilling when I finally managed to peel it off, and there were white powdery glue (I think?) bits everywhere.

The cloth I used in the background is part of a dress I got from Biyan, one of my favourite local Indonesian designers. I think it really complements the pretty labels. 

Dragonfly

"White melon, spiced coconut milk, sandalwood, myrrh, and golden amber"

This smells like a cool, cantaloupe candy. The iciness isn't one of those sharp, burns your nose kind of icy. It just gives this scent a coolness to it. After about 20 minutes, a bit of smokiness enters and gives this scent more depth. It now smells like a complex, cool, cantaloupe candy (I sweat the alliteration is unintentional). If you've tried Darling Clandestine's Pyroteknik, this is like that scent's good twin. They're both smoky melon candy smells, but Pyroteknik is fireworks and melon with smoke, while Dragonfly is a cool, deep, smoked melon embedded in ice.

You will not believe how many NSFW pics pop up when you search for "melons"
Awesome photography by Michael Shmelev

Overview: I'd expect a heavy, warm scent from reading those notes, but this is a cooler scent. It's not light and airy, and definitely deep, but it's more cool than warm.

Galleon

"Golden bananas, creamy chai spices, jaggery, Indonesian sandalwood, vanilla pods, and dark rum"

At first it smells like artificial bananas, which kinda worried me. My boyfriend thinks it smells like banana bubblegum and he's right. The cheap kinds. But after about 10-15 minutes, it got really good. There's this cinnamon and wood resin smell that came out, and the banana smell just kinda blends into them to create an edible deliciousness. You feel hungry sniffing this, but you're not sure what you're hungry for. Is it something baked? A drink? It's something creamy but doesn't smell like a thick, heavy cream or a cool, light cream either. What is it?

I love this scent so much, but unfortunately, it has a noticeably shorter throw than the rest. You have to get closer to the skin to catch a whiff, even before it dries down. I tried wearing it out for a day while at a conference and people could smell my lip balm (Dreaming Tree Soapworks' Hobbiton Banana Bread) and cuticle oil (Pretty & Polished's Coconut Papaya), but not the perfume.

Overview: Definitely not surprised by the notes there. They really blend beautifully together. If you're expecting more of a banana smell though, you may get disappointed.

Legend

"The scent of apple orchards and dandelion fluff in the air, warm chamomile tea, linden blossoms, dried apricot, blue tansy, sweet clover, and rock moss"

This opens with an artificial apple smell that you often find in apple soaps. It's nice enough, only it smells a lot like a common hand soap in Indonesia.

This one. It smells exactly like this soap.
Image courtesy of supermetroemall.com

Then a lemon scent enters, which doesn't help it smell less like a liquid hand soap. My boyfriend and I agree it's a classy liquid hand soap you'll find in fancy hotels (the kind that goes beyond 5-stars and need their own snooty rating system), but still a hand soap.

Eventually, there's a calm, green note that surprisingly doesn't smell highly artificial, and some cool florals. It just blends in beautifully with everything else. Still liquid hand soap though. The fancy kind.

Overview: The apples is definitely prominent in this. I tried the scent again and the apricots aren't as obvious and just add a tartness to this that smells like lemons after it mixes with everything else.

Summer Crush

"Yellow mango drenched in fresh coconut cream, frozen lemonade, jasmine iced tea, Tahitian vanilla, golden amber and vanilla musk"

This smells like a pineapple-mango chewy candy, I swear it has that smell every chewy candy has. Only the fruits smell like actual juice instead of the artificial kind. If you've tried Alchemic Muse's Pineapple Milk, this is a higher end version. As the scent dries down, the chewy candy part gets a bit lotion smelling, but I still like it.

Overview: I guess mango, lemonade & coconut ends up smelling like pineapples!

Review & Controversy: Glamour Doll Eyes

I was given free mini jars of Glamour Doll Eyes shadows and asked for a surprise selection of fun colours. 

Since I didn't do any ordering, I can't comment much on customer service except to say that Vee is really sweet and friendly. 

Packaging-wise, they're pretty and I love how they come with waterproof labels and were shrink-wrapped.

Here's the fill level for the jars I got:

The lids show off the shifts!

Anyway, on to swatches!

Macro shots on Darling Girl's glitter glue:

Glitter glue swatches side by side:

So gorgeous! Vee definitely picked out the perfect colours for me, because I'm crazy over these crazy bright colours!

On Urban Decay's Primer Potion:

The difference between Grenade & Sex Appeal is more obvious here.

Yup...they significantly became more "bald".

Foiled with a wet brush:

Sorry for the messy swatches. This was the first swatch I did after returning from my trip and somehow, the humidity killed my tape and colours ended up seeping through. I noticed these are really hard to foil with water though. And yes, Grenade ended up a different colour, which I thought was so freaking cool! This is why I love foiling!

Bare skin swatches:

This is the surprising part. Dirty Jeans is an unblended pigments yet it stays on ok. I was expecting way more fall out but it's pretty adhesive so I checked their ingredients list as well as their definition of "unblended"pigments to see what they mean. This is what GDE says about their unblended pigments:

Screenshot taken on 18 Aug, 2014

I'm glad GDE is open and honest when it comes to mentioning that they do use unblended pigments. And great, they do add other stuff into their eyeshadows to make it easier to work with. I checked the ingredients and I can't figure out how they adhere so well to bare skin, since this is their ingredient list:

Besides titanium dioxide, I see nothing else to add adhesion, and usually titanium dioxide barely cuts it for adhesion. The eyeshadow is also not streaky, and I don't see anything like silica to add slip. If anyone knows how this magic's possible, let me know. I emailed Vee about it and this is her reply:

So here are the ingredients for the eyeshadows I tried, if anyone can help me figure out the mystery, that'll be great. Bolded are the non-colour items.

• Avant-Garde: Pigment Violet, Mica, Titanium Dioxide, Tin Oxide, Synthetic Fluorophylogopite, Silica, Iron Oxide

• Burlesque: Manganese Violet (Pigment Violet 16), Iron Oxide, Mica, Titanium Dioxide, Tin Oxide, Calcium Aluminum Borosilicate, Silica

• Coquette: Titanium Dioxide, Mica, Magnesium Stearate, Pigment Violet, Tin Oxide, Synthetic Fluorophylogopite, Silica

• Dirty Jeans: Mica, Titanium Dioxide, Iron Oxide, Ferric Ferrocyanide

• Grenade: Mica, Iron Oxide, Titanium Dioxide, Blue #1 Al Lake, Yellow #5 Al Lake, Hydrogenated Polyisobutene, Palmitic Acid, Tin Oxide, Ferric Ferrocyanide, Calcium Aluminum Borosilicate, Silica

• Sex Appeal: Manganese Violet (Pigment Violet 16), Mica, Titanium Dioxide, Yellow #5, Blue #1, Palmitic Acid

As a comparison, here are typical ingredient lists for other companies (there's more than 3 but I didn't want to do an overkill...Dawn Eyes adhere best to bare skin, but her website's messy) that has eyeshadows that adhere well to bare skin:

Notoriously Morbid

• Bad Juju: Mica, titanium dioxide, carmine, iron oxide, ultramarine, magnesium stearate
• 
  
• Cry Innocent: Magnesium myristrate, mica, carnauba wax, iron oxide, titanium dioxide, ferric ferrocyanide, tin oxide

Daisy Bird Cosmetics

• Hello Hyacinth: Titanium dioxide, ultramarines, mica, carnauba wax, iron oxide, ferric ferrocyanide, Magnesium Myristate, tin oxide, carmine
• 
  
• Dandy Dandelion: Titanium dioxide, mica, carnauba wax, iron oxide, magnesium myristate

Backstreet Makeup Co

• (thirsty) Thursday: Mica, Boron Nitrate, Magnesium Stearate, Magnesium Myristrate, Iron Oxides, Silica, Titanium Dioxide, and Tin Oxide
• 
  
• Olivine: Mica, Boron Nitrate, Iron Oxides, Silica, Titanium Dioxide, Tin Oxide, Magnesium Stearate, Magnesium Myristrate

Anyway, here's some looks I did with their eyeshadows:

Cut creases aren't the most flattering on monolids, but it's the best way to show off many colours.

As you can tell, I stopped caring at the parts of my eyeliner that'll be hidden under my lids...

How my monolids normally look...

I tried out a powder foundation and it flaked on my dry patches. So sorry about that...

Product List:

Eyes

• GDE
• Avant-Garde (sides of "crease")
• Coquette (middle of "crease")
• Sex Appeal (shading above "crease")
• Dirty Jeans (lower lash line)
• Müse gold eyeshadow (inner corners)
• Maybelline Falsies mascara
• Fiberwig mascara

Face

• Biore Perfect Face Milk
• Dreamworld Hermetica foundation (Thetys II mixed with Nimue I)
• Revlon blush (mixed several blushes together)

Lips

• Müse customized colour

Once I applied it on my eyes and started blending, I started seeing the difference. As you can see from the pic, the eyeshadow went "bald" and a lot of the gorgeous glitter was gone.

UPDATE: Someone more familiar with ingredients informed me that some TKB Trading micas are pretty clingy on their own (which means nice swatch pics). You still need a base though, since they start wanting to come off when you apply it and start blending.

UPDATE: GDE plans on removing unblended pigments in the future:

UPDATE: GDE has officially removed unblended pigments from their site....but most of their eyeshadows still contain no bases. For a guide to help you identify if your eyeshadows contain any bases, you can head here. For a comparison of pure mica against micas with a base to show you what bases do, you can head here. For a review on how pure micas perform on their own, you can head here.

Review: Violette Market Penny Candies (8 scents)

I recently got a bunch of Violette Market's penny candies during their penny candy sale. I also got some samples from Ajevie's decant circle.

I need to make a quick rave about Ajevie's decants. Check out how the little decants arrive!

It's so neat and makes finding the notes so convenient! Angi of Ajevie is also extremely fast when it comes to responding and really friendly. I'm definitely joining in on more decant circles.

So this is what I ordered:

From VM:

• Coconut Pomelo Cremes Penny Candy
• Smoked Apple Wood Penny Candy
• Carrot Cremes Penny Candy
• Choco Melon Cremes Penny Candy
• Wood Vanilla Cremes Penny Candy
• Smoked Cherry Blossom Wood Penny Candy
• Caramel Sugar Kettle Corn
• Ceylon Cinnamon Sugar Donuts
• The Gingerbread House
• Mexico City

(Sort of) Extras from VM:

• Smoked Citrus Wood Penny Candy
• Smoked Chocolate Blackberry Honey Penny Candy
• Smoking Plum Taffy Pull
• French Lime Blossom botanical perfume solid

They're not exactly free but they're not exactly paid in full price either..I'll explain below in the Customer Service review section.

From Ajevie, decants of:

• Choco Melon Cremes Penny Candy
• Smoked Apple Wood Penny Candy (I initially wanted to wait to try these out first, but the sale happened)
• Pirate's Cove
• Granny Smith Cotton Candy

Customer Service

I can't comment on the TAT since my order got a bit complicated and I had to send it to my cousin who doesn't take notes of when she gets her mail.

What I can comment on, is how amazing Lori is. Lori was super friendly and helpful during my entire email exchange, even though I had tons of my shipping questions. I ended up shipping to 2 locations, and they're both different from my Paypal address since Paypal doesn't let Indonesian credit cards pick a non-Indonesian shipping address. She managed to keep track of all that during a sale. I'm happy!

Another thing that really wow-ed me. So obviously I ended up with a shipping difference after changing international shipping to domestic. I also originally ordered Sadbh and she accidentally ran out of it.  Annoying, but it happens during big sales.

I've previously mentioned to her that since refunds don't make sense for me due to international transaction charges, I prefer getting refunded in samples or something. I was only expecting her to only toss in a couple of samples and replace Sadbh with a full bottle of something else to refund me, which would be fair. Instead, she gave me all the extras I mentioned above! Here's the list again:

• Smoked Citrus Wood Penny Candy
• Smoked Chocolate Blackberry Honey Penny Candy
• Smoking Plum Taffy Pull
• French Lime Blossom botanical perfume solid

It's beyond generous and I'm definitely happy about it. Now this is amazing customer service. I can't even get upset over not getting Sadbh (even though it sounds heavenly).

Oh, and I feel kinda bad about mentioning the solid perfume, because she only made 5 of it, and I got one of them. Not to gloat but, Lori thinks I'm special!!! YAAAYY!!!

Perfume Oils General Review

These scents are strong. They have the strongest sillage I've ever encountered and I learnt not to sniff certain scents too close to the application point since it'll hurt your nose the way air fresheners & certain car perfumes do. For the first 45 minutes to an hour, I can smell it as I'm typing when I put it on my hand. It eventually calms down to about intimate whispering distance, but doesn't get faint until about 2h. You'll still get traces of perfume on your skin over 8-12h later, though by then, the smell is hardly recognizable and often just a vaguely sweet scent. They're bloody strong.

Quality-wise, I'm a fan even though I have some misses. One thing I noticed is that the penny candies don't seem to agree with me unlike the other VM perfumes. On me, a lot of the penny candies end up having that painfully sharp smell you get from very strong car perfumes or air freshener sprayed too close to you. I'm wondering if it's because the sillage is so strong, since the smell wafting around is often pleasant. It's just for the penny candies though, so I'm not sure if it's the candy note going nuts on me.

I also noticed that while they still smell amazing, a lot of gourmand smells end up smelling non-gourmand on me. It could be my skin chemistry, but it's definitely worth noting since, for people with similar skin chemistry as mine, it may come as a surprise when a scent that's supposed to smell edible smells like fresh linens or something.

Since the perfume names kinda give away what they're supposed to smell like, these aren't done blind so I didn't bother with writing an overview.

Carrot Cremes Penny Candy

Oh man! This starts of so well! It smells like frosted carrot cakes, the kind with rich, delicious vanilla frosting. Then, for about 5-30 minutes or so, you'll have to endure a car perfume kind of smell -strong, sharp and hurts your nose. It smells like a vanilla car perfume. But once you power through that stage, it calms down and smells like tempting vanilla & cinnamon cake, but there's a bit of artificial cake instead of the genuine deliciousness I got in the beginning. It's still a great scent, but after you smell the most perfect cake scent ever in the beginning, you can't help but think it's not good enough. By about an hour, this dries down to a vanilla potpourri smell with that metallic drydown I often get from gourmands.

Smoked Apple Wood Penny Candy

Holy crap smoked is right! I first smell only smoke on first whiff, though it mellows out eventually. I smell the wood, but the apple somehow smells like a sweet vaguely apple liqueur to me. It kinda smells like a cinnamon apple potpourri converted into a very sweet liqueur, with the apple bit being drowned out by the potpourri and sweet liqueur.

Maybe I need my midday snack, because this kinda looks delicious..
Image found on thelostogle.com

Choco Melon Cremes Penny Candy

Aww! Initially, this is one of the best chocolate notes I've ever encountered. Smells genuinely like chocolate, and not the cheap kind. There's a melon smell mixed into this too, but the chocolate's the prominent note. The melon is that artificial melon smell like Midoris, but I like that artificial melon smell. Unfortunately, after a while, it smells like a headache inducing, sweet car perfume. The kind that comes in tins and has this waxy thing inside that dries up to look like shrivelled, wrinkled gremlin skin. The dry down is just vaguely sweet and you can't really identify what it is. I wish this would stay the way it smelled for the first 5-10 minutes!

Coconut Pomelo Cremes Penny Candy

Now this starts smelling like a fruity scented hand wash. I think it's because the coconut note they use smell like like sunblock, so the smell kind of makes you think of drugstore products. Then a roomspray sprayed too close to your nose smell comes in. I say room spray instead of car perfume since this scent smells more like something you'd spray in a room. It's pretty nauseating until the sharpness calms down, unfortunately. When it calms down, it smells like a tropical scented roomspray. It smells more like a room than a gourmand, so that's a bit of a surprise. I smell like the bathroom in a nice Newport Beach home.

We may not have a beachfront location but we will make damn sure we smell the way we think a beachfront location smells like!
Image courtesy of styleathome.com

Smoked Cherry Blossom Wood Penny Candy

It smells like cherry blossom and candies! I don't smell the smoked or wood in this, which works out for me since my skin amps up VM's smoke notes so much. And this Not candied cherry blossoms, like sweet, clean cherry blossoms and candies. The result is a smell that's clean and floral yet muddled with sweet, sticky candy. It gets soapy at times and there's a bit of a cloying car perfume smell that threatens to come out, but overall, it stays amazing.

Smoked Chocolate Blackberry Honey Penny Candy

Ok, the initial smell is a BBQ-ed meat smell that freaked me out. I smell something sweet and honey-ish trying to come out but it's just drowned out by the BBQ smell. After about 25 minutes, the sweet honey smell is strong enough to show up, but it's not enough. It smells like someone tried to make honey-baked chicken, left it in the oven too long, now there's smoke all over the place after the fire's put out, and everyone's sheepishly explaining to the fire department what happened. After an hour, the smokiness calmed down but not enough. I smell like this just happened to me:

RIP Robin Williams. Still one of my favourite scenes of all time.
Image courtesy of blogs.kqed.org

I think this is one I'm going to try to age. I smell some delicious blackberry honey in the background, and I think they may surface more after ageing.

Smoked Citrus Wood Penny Candy

At the beginning this smells like a liqueur that would be sickly sweet and slightly medicinal tasting, even though it smells good. There's a smell of orange blossoms, but it's mostly drowned by the liqueur smell. After 10-15 min, there's that sickeningly sweet, sharp shrivelled car air freshener smell if you sniff too near to where you apply it. BUT, If you stay at around casual conversation distance, you get whiffs of delicious candy. The clean, high end ones with unique floral flavours. I actually love this.

Wood Vanilla Cremes Penny Candy

This starts off as sandalwood vanilla. The sandalwood's the prominent smell, so it ends up smelling like creamy sandalwood. Very clean and powdery kind of smell, slightly airy and sharp but creamy enough to anchor it down...the ad for this will definitely have a woman in a white dress prancing around. Actually, I know the perfect picture for an ad for this perfume:

This photographer is seriously talented. I love his work!
Ballet I by Imantas Boiko

It leans towards going soapy at times, but definitely smells like a perfume rather than a soap. As much as I'm in love with this, I was surprised to get a more powdery, clean smell rather than the gourmand I was expecting. I can imagine some people would be a bit disappointed in that.


BONUS: So Violette Market is very, very strong and all the sniffing does give you a bit of a headache. This is how I clear my nose:

Coffee beans stored in an old HoG tub...re-using saves the environment!

Review & Recommendation: Haunt Beguiling Bath & Body

I got my order from Haunt and they're incredibly gorgeous! First of all, they have gorgeous packaging:

I love the artwork. I'm saving all the containers! The two small spray bottles are FREE samples of skin glossing oils. I love freebies!

Secondly, holy crap this brand is awesome. I finally found my perfect fruity/candy scents. So a lot of fruity/candy scents tend to go artificial and gross, or smell like they're created for anyone below the age of 13, so I've previously decided that I hated "candy" scents. Then I tried Haunt. Wow. These just stay smelling like really grown-up candy. It's like candy that's gone through the kitchen of a Michelin star chef and come out absolutely, mindblowingly delicious, with a name you can't pronounce, and presented in a way that makes you too scared to eat it in case it's artwork instead of food.

Thirdly, their TAT is awesome. My order was shipped within 3 days! Some people who ordered later may have gotten longer TATs, but this brand is great with updating everyone via their Facebook page on the order status.

Finally, there is something magical about their oil. I'll get to it in my product reviews.

My only gripe with this brand is that they're so popular, everything sells out fast whenever they make a release. It's as bad or worse than Haus of Gloi's (HoG) seasonal releases. What makes it worse than HoG is that after they sell out, that's it. They have no general catalogue brand and no restocks. I'm planning to set an alarm for ever new release they'll have now. Screw you all, nothing's standing in the way of my Haunt goodies.

Oh, and their products tend to leak during shipping:

But I have this problem with a lot of different companies when it comes to shipping scrubs or other oily stuff, so I'm not too concerned with it.

Now on to product reviews (Part 1..I'll do the perfume oils in Part 2)...

Skin Glossing Oil General Review

Surprisingly my skin absorbs this in 15-20 minutes! After that, it's all gone! There's no oiliness at all and I can continue doing my stuff without turning my entire room into a slipping hazard. And you know what's amazing? My skin feels significantly better even until the next day. What the hell is this oil? It's magical! This is as good as HoG's pumpkin butters moisture-wize and if you've heard me rave on and on about those pumpkin butters, you know how big of a compliment this is.

I'm trying to be less of a fan girl and objectively try to think of some not so great things about this product, and all I can think of is that application also takes some getting used to (my bed got sprayed several times). It's really hard to think of anything bad about this.

Apricot Fairy Floss Skin Glossing Oil

(no description)

This smells like crystal apricots -light, tinkly, with an icy sparkle. The icy, spearmint smell in this is not the searingly painful sort of iciness that stings your eyes. It so subtle that it just makes this scent sparkle..if that makes any sense at all. The apricot can smell a bit over-ripe, but it's not enough to stop this scent from being amazing. Again, this smells absolutely delicious and grown-up candy.

Coconut Cream & Peaches Skin Glossing Oil

"Ripe peaches blended with fresh coconut milk"

This is so delicious! It's like a fresh, ripe peach. It's the type of peach that's ripe to the right amount - sweet yet not overly so, juicy and slightly tart. The coconut is not an in your face kind of coconut, it adds a creaminess to this scent, but isn't the most obvious note. This is just so delicious.

Mother-of-Pearl Skin Glossing Oil

"Pink watermelon slices, Tahitian vanilla bean, jasmine sambac absolute, pink pepper, sea water, Egyptian musk and driftwood"

Another grown-up candy smell. I can smell a bit of watermelon in this, but it's just so well-blended with everything else, this smells like the most amazing melange of fruity sweetness. This scent just makes me want to giggle and run around like a little kid. It's such a happy scent. 

Alva Starr Sugar Polish

"Sweet summer melon, iced peppermint tea, golden brown sugar, bourbon vanilla, pearl musk"

Gods this is grown up candy. It smells like a gourmet Starburst and I swear it has that smell chewy candies all seem to have. The notes are so well-blended, I honestly can't identify any of those even though I tried hard to sniff them out. It's a very happy smell and it's definitely hard not to smile since this just takes you back to when you're a little girl playing princess/CEO/big boss of the whole freaking universe. 

Dreaming of world domination...
Gorgeous pic by the very talented Petrova Julian

This is now my favourite sugar polish formula. It's a smooth, sugar paste that spreads easily, yet the oil is blended so perfectly that there's separation or stiffness in the formula. The sugar is a medium grain sugar, so it may not be exfoliating enough for some people. I use if daily now, so it's good enough for me.

Now this is the amazing part...the oil in this polish. You know the "milkiness" you get when you wet a Shu Umera oil cleanser? It feels like that when you're rubbing it on your wet skin. And when I wash it off, my skin feels softened yet without traces of the oil, just like when I'm using the Shu Umera oil cleanser. And I feel clean too! Some days, I skip soap and only use this scrub.

I'm so amazed. I'm going to stay up late and buy all her scrubs. I need them.

Lip Balm General Review

Isn't the packaging gorgeous? It's shrink-wrapped too!

After my amazing experience with the skin glossing oils and sugar polish, I end up with crazy high expectations for this. I'm almost expecting unicorns to come bursting into my room and offer to take me on a magic carpet ride to Neverland, with an English nanny who'll entertain me with songs about nonsensical words.

Well, it's an ordinary balm. Lightly sweetened, smooth and creamy, neither waxy nor oily..it's pretty ordinary. The scent disappears kinda fast (almost immediately after you put it on) and I was a bit sad about that since they were delicious and didn't taste weirdly artificial at all.

One minor thing that still impressed me anyway:

Smooooth..

I love how neat the tops of their balms are. I'm ok with messy lip balm tops since it's common with indies, but a neat one definitely gives me a good impression.

Coconut Cream & Peaches Lip Balm

"Ripe peaches blended with fresh coconut milk"

I was curious if this will taste the way the glossing oil smells. Unfortunately no. The glossing oil has the peachy juiciness bursting out. This is a more mellow peach with the coconut equally strong.

Persian Melon Lip Balm

"Delicately perfumed honeydew and cantaloupe with a hint of crisp white cucumber"

This just tastes like a cool melon, but not the weird, cheap candy type of melon flavouring. I like it for the brief 1-2 seconds when I can taste it.

Review & Recommendation: Midsummer Dreams Apothecary's Unisex Colognes

Midsummer Dreams Apothecary (MDA) is the indie first perfume brand I've ever tried (previous reviews here), so obviously, I had to support Cheryl when she released a new unisex cologne line. Full disclosure, I got a blogger discount, but I was planning to buy this (as well as a bottle of Rapunzel & Snow White since I love them) even without the discount. I already have a very positive view of the brand from my first purchase, and no discount can match the warm fuzzy feelings you get from a great experience and amazing customer service.

Btw, Cheryl just graduated from nursing school! Grats, Cheryl!

Customer Service Review

Ordered: Jul 6
Shipped: Jul 10


I have to give it to Cheryl, she's consistently improving her brand. The first time I ordered, there was a lot of leakage. Everything was leaking everywhere and even today, I have to store all my samples perfectly upright or they'll leak all over the place. She switched sample bottles and now everything arrived with almost no leakage at all. Unfortunately, the Sea Witch sample came leaking, but that was only one out of 7 oils I got.

The packaging, is obviously pretty as always.

And I got free samples of Sea Witch and Beauty solid perfumes! Yay! More to review!

Price

• 15 ml Bottle: $30 (unavailable for colognes)
• 10 ml Roll On: $15.30

• Themed Sampler Packs (5 perfumes): $10
• Perfume Oil Samples: $2.50

• Solid Perfume: $7.50

 Despite the very, very pretty packaging the 15ml bottle comes with, I chose the more value for money 10 ml option. My indie addiction has left me broke ._.

Oh, I have to add that international shipping is a flat rate of $7.50! Holy crap I was so happy! US shipping's a flat rate of $2.50..so worth it.

Now on to the scent reviews..

Perfume Oil Review

I think the longevity definitely improved for this brand. The smell stops wafting around after 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours, but lingers on your skin for 6-9 hours. Since these are unisex colognes and my boyfriend is finally moving back to Jakarta (woot!), obviously, he has to try these one too.

I trained him so well...

As always, I did the review blind until I finished my review, but checked the notes before I made my bf try it because I couldn't resist.

Beast

"Amber, Oakmoss, Patchouli, Rosewood, Sandalwood, White Musk"

I don't really see this as a masculine perfume at all. It smells like sweet and mellow sandalwood with the barest hint of spiciness. It gets very warm and heady eventually, and the spiciness is gone. It's much too heady actually. I have a bit of a headache from this. The headiness eventually disappears after 20-30 minutes, but it's still a pretty heavy, warm scent.

Overview: Dang, the notes definitely sound heavy. Not surprised this smells so heady.

On bf: The patchouli got amped up on him, and it smells really heavy and old on him. He, er...kinda smells like an old lady.

Bf's review: It smells like one of those old-school barbers. It's an old man's aftershave in one of those old barbers.

Charming

"Balsam, Basil, Bergamot, Cedar, Leather, Oakmoss, Sweet Grass, Rose, Rosewood, Tobacco, Vanilla, and Ylang Ylang"

This smell is very MDA and I keep thinking it smells like another MDA perfume -fresh, creamy florals. But there's a slightly masculine coolness to this. By about 15 minutes, it becomes more sweet and almost candy-ish, only without all the artificialness. It smells like candied creamy florals. I'm not sure if this makes sense, but it's a more rounded instead of sharp sweetness. Definitely one to get a full size in.

Overview: It could be the sweet grass & rose combo. That's a very distinct smell I always associate with MDA's Rapunzel.

On bf: Oh wow, it smells strongly floral on him. The sweet grass & rose combo was definitely dominant in the beginning, and he smells like MDA's Rapunzel. Eventually there's a bit of a vaguely blue sort of smell, and a sour fruit smell. I think the vanilla's turning sour on him, creating that sour smell. It's still mostly Rapunzel though. 

Bf's review: Two mottled mares frolicking in the pale moonlight of the super-moon. [Yes, this was the 5th scent he had to sniff. He got tired and started making up stuff. I eventually got him to give a serious review] There's this sour, fermented smell. Fermented jackfruit. That's it, it smells like fermented jackfruit.

[There is no jackfruit scent. I swear.]

Dragon

"Dragon's Blood, Earth, Rosewood, Vetiver, & White Musk"

Oh gods this smells so good! It's a sweet, fresh earth that has something a medley of fruitiness and florals mixed in. It's how you imagine earth would smell like in a magically beautiful place like Maleficent's Moors - sweet, fresh with hints of the flora that grew in it. I'm a huge fan. After about 30 minutes, it smells more watery -like sweet water that carries the scents of the flowers, fruits and trees bursting around it. It's how I imagine the water in Moors would smell like.

The plot may suck, but the cinematography is bloody awesome.

Seriously..imagine how this would smell like..

Overview: Not sure how dragon's blood smells like but this smells awesome!

On bf: This smells like spiced wood and leather on him. It smells amazing at first, but the spiciness dies down as time goes on and it becomes more cool and feminine. We both agreed we preferred the initial smell on him.

Bf's review: This is nice. [After I forced him to describe the scent better] It's sweet and spicy. I like it. Hey, since it's a men's cologne...can I keep it?

[..he's keeping it.

I guess he really likes this since this is the only cologne oil he ever asked to keep, and I've made him try a LOT of unisex colognes before. Mad respect for MDA!]

Hook

"Bay Rum, Caramel, Leather, Tobacco, and White Musk"

Starts of as watery leather and becomes like a very masculine musk with a citrus smell to it. It gets heavier and heavier with time until it becomes a very heavy, heady, almost old lady-ish perfume. Maybe an old lady who walks around with horseback riding gear everywhere, and always carries a riding crop with her. I normally hate heady perfumes, but I ordered a solid of this, so I know I must have found the notes attractive.

Miraculously, at around 15 minutes, all the heaviness broke and it got much lighter. Still slightly heavy, but not headache inducing sort of heavy. Now it really smells like an androgynous perfume. There's a leathery, cool masculinity mingled with a powdery feminine smell. It's a kind of scent I can imagine on women who make other women question their sexuality. Like her:

Princess Anne in the 70s
Found on Pintrest

It smells like an expensive, woodsy bubble bath as it dries down.

Overview: Oh..I think my stomach was doing the picking when I saw this and zoomed in on caramel. Was the citrus smell caramel going sour?

On bf: This smells like citrus on leather on him. There's citrus on him too! It's not just me! Yay! It gets heavier and powdery as time goes on, and ends up smelling like leather seats in a powder room.

Bf's review:  It smells chemically. Bit of citrus and leather. Is that right? Ok, now smells like shaving cream in an old-school barber, it has that old talc smell.

[TIL my boyfriend identifies musky smells as "old-school barber"]

Sea Witch

"Bergamot, Hyacinth, Lily of the Valley, Lotus, Water Mint, Oakmoss, Ocean Mist, Sea Salt, Vetiver, White Musk"

It smells like a very clean, peaceful blue smell at first. Makes you think of clean spas where everyone wears white gowns. There's a bit of a masculine huskiness to this, but it got drowned out as this scent gets sweeter and sweeter. It was a bit headache inducing, but after about an hour of this, it calms down. The scent smells like flowers sprayed with water.

Overview: To be perfectly honest, I don't know how all that smells so the description isn't much help for me. I just zoomed in on ocean mist & sea salt and expect a more salty smell.

On bf: This smells like sweet florals on him. The florals were definitely amped up and he smells like he smashed into a giant bouquet of flowers.

Bf's review:  Smells flowery. It's too feminine.

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Solid Perfume Review

The longevity and sillage for this is pretty much the same as my old batch of solid perfumes-strongest at the first 1-2h, gone by 3h. The sillage isn't as strong as the perfume oils, so you have to get to kissing distance to sniff them. The texture is very stiff and hard.

One thing I'm definitely impressed with is how the perfumes come with the top smoothed straight. It's a minor thing but makes the entire presentation so neat. Definitely appreciated!

So clean and pretty!

Beauty

This smells like light, fresh florals, which surprised me. It almost smells like Rapunzel. I thought I got the wrong scent, so I had to revisit my old collection. Holy crap, Beauty has aged beautifully after about 4 months! It now starts off as a very light and fresh rose, instead of the burnt tobacco & leather smell. As it wears on, it gets heavier and becomes this very creamy, warm florals that's a tad old lady-ish, but not as bad as it was the first time I tried it. It's a perfume I can see on a middle-aged Madame de Pompadour -a sophisticated, lush woman brimming with secrets and charm. I picked Madame de Pompadour out of all famous mistresses since there's something Rococo about this perfume - it's heavy, grand and florid.

A portrait of Madame de Pompadour by François Boucher
Image courtesy of Wikimedia

On the negative side, I sniffed at Mermaid (due to leakage, all the labels have fallen off so I had to sniff everything) and it didn't age well at all. It got much heavier and the candied smell becomes a bit artificial. It ends up smelling like a cloying car perfume :(

I've updated my previous review to reflect the change.

Hook

The smell is pretty much the same as the perfume oil and the only difference I noticed is that there's less of the sourness I smelled on the perfume oil.

Sea Witch

The musky masculine smell is less strong here, so it smells way more feminine. The sweetness got toned down, so I like it more. It smells a bit like a Crabtree & Evelyn body lotion.